Introduction
A wrongful conviction is considered as a miscarriage of justice. It entails a terrible injustice that results to an innocent person spending years in prison or on death row. Studies on the impact of a wrongful conviction on victims have not been empirically researched despite the rising number of wrongful conviction. Currently the injustice of being convicted and imprisoned for a crime one did not commit has become intuitively apparent in the criminal justice system. Research evidence shows that a high proportion of wrongfully convicted prisoners suffer severe psychological consequences. This includes post-traumatic stress and anxiety disorders. Once they are exonerated it complicates their ability to return to a normal life after release. In addition there is minimal financial compensation for persons who were victimized by the criminal justice system in spite of the compensation laws that has grown in recent years. This raises profound doubts about the accuracy and fairness of the criminal justice system. As a result it has prompted the need to provide awareness on the growing number of wrongful convictions leading to innocent persons being incarcerated.
Scope of the wrongful convictions problems
In the past wrongful convictions were rare, they could be downplayed as inevitable failings of a complex human system. However over the years the frequency of the wrongful convictions has been linked to systemic problems. Hence they pose a challenge to the fairness and accuracy of the justice system thus calling for a public response. The issue has become controversial as some prosecutors and judges believe the number of wrongful convictions to be vanishingly small. Yet what they fail to understand is that exoneration is not the same as a wrongful conviction despite being loosely equivalent. (Findley, 2001, pg 333).
Moreover most wrongful convictions have occurred in murder and rape cases rather than more numerous crimes, such as robbery, for which unreliable eyewitness identification is the only evidence. This, therefore, requires greater evidence to avoid executions as more errors would likely occur as convictions based on the erroneous eyewitness identification and circumstantial evidence. (Zalman, Marvin, Smith, and Kiger, 2008, pg 100)
Causes of wrongful convictions
Studies reveal that wrongful convictions are related to miscarriages of justice. A key contributing factor is the high negligence in the justice departments hence causing most wrongful convictions by criminal justice officers or defense lawyers. Besides, the troubling minority of cases involve perjury or knowingly dishonest action by forensic examiners, prosecutors, and police. (Findley, 2001, pg 333).
Furthermore, there has been a case of mistaken eyewitness identification which has become the leading cause of wrongful convictions. Although an overall error rate for eyewitnesses is not well established, some experts place it at about 25% which is the same as the proportion of DNA tests in rape cases laboratory in which the DNA did not match the mistakenly identified suspect. The human memory does not record all information hence it makes facial recall somewhat uncertain. For example, event such as extreme stress or focus on a weapon, decreases facial recall by victims and witnesses. Hence can lead to witnesses superimposing the face of someone previously observed but not well-known onto the memory. Therefore these and other factors show that eyewitness identification should be received with caution. (Westervelt, and John, 2001)
In addition, the problems with eyewitness identification are made worse by flawed police procedures. The police are not always scrupulous in ensuring that the suspect does not stand out from the lineup fillers. Evidence shows that more errors occur when fillers are selected by their similarity to the suspect than by the victim’s description of the perpetrator. Besides the Police or prosecutors have a tendency to suppress the uncertain identification or no identification by one lineup witness as they focus on promoting the testimony of another. These and other elements often make lineups a less-than-optimal method of an accurate identification. (Leverick, and Chalmers, 2014 pg, 33)
On the other hand, problems with the expert evidence presented by forensic scientists or forensic examiners are the second leading cause of wrongful convictions. This has taken a variety of forms, including problems inherent in the method, incompetent or untruthful experts, and substandard forensic laboratories. Although the use of fingerprints, bullet and tool mark examinations, and footprint and tire impressions, are considered to be credible and accurate, they have been susceptible to errors. If such expert evidence goes unchallenged it is possible to make honest mistaken conclusions that will lead to false convictions. (Leo, 2008).
Other kinds of expert comparison, such as handwriting analysis, are more subjective and require closer scrutiny. In addition, DNA analysis has largely replaced hair analysis, and bite mark evidence, although accepted in courts, has been subject to strong criticism. As result examiners have been known to make errors in a situation where evidence is based on forensic science. These include errors on blood analysis, drug analysis, forensic toxicology and organic and inorganic analysis of crime scene trace evidence. Even worse, in a few notorious cases, forensic examiners have been exposed as pathological liars who always testified to benefit the prosecution, even when no tests were conducted. (Leo, and Gould, 2009, pg 2010)
In addition to outright falsification, forensic experts can mislead courts and juries by overstating the strength of their findings, reporting inconclusive reports as conclusive, and at the same time failing to report conflicting results. As a result when expert witness perjury has been exposed, state criminal justice systems have been compelled to reopen hundreds of cases to ensure that they did not result in wrongful convictions.
Finally, the most reliable methods can also produce incorrect results if the forensic laboratories are substandard. For example, testing in some inferior laboratories has even led to several people being wrongly convicted based on an erroneous DNA analysis. Among the worst cases was the Houston, Texas, police laboratory, whereby a few years ago the conditions of the lab were so poor that the laboratory’s roof leaked, leading to the contamination of samples with excess moisture. (Zalman, Smith, and Kiger.2008pg 72)
Reforms: Reducing the Number of Wrongful Convictions
Having identified the proximate causes of wrongful convictions, it is imperative that some feasible reforms be implemented so as to assist in reducing the miscarriages of justice. Even though, it is not a guarantee that a widespread adoption and systematic application of these reforms will reduce the number of wrongful convictions. It is recommended that a lineup reforms are grounded in laboratory research findings. This will help reduce the number of false identifications without significantly reducing accurate identifications. (Gould, and Richard 2010, pg 825)
Witnesses should be instructed that the perpetrator may not be present, to reduce the tendency to pick anyone. They should be selected by the victim’s verbal description, and not on similarity to the suspect. Lineups should contain only one suspect and should be fair in that there are similarities of race, height, general appearance, facial hair, photograph characteristics, and the like between the suspect and fillers. Also, the witness should be asked for a confidence statement immediately after making identification, to prevent his or her inflation of confidence as the case proceeds.
Also, the crime laboratories should be accredited and their examiners certified and should undergo periodic proficiency testing. Defense attorneys, as well as prosecutors and judges, should also be educated in forensic testing techniques. On the other hand, forensic research is needed to ensure that methods and findings are valid. Substandard laboratories should be closed and not reopened until all problems are remedied.
Videotape should be used during entire interrogations, from initiation to the conclusion, and not just in the confessions. The use of the video tapes will allow the judges to determine whether the interrogation was coercive or likely to produce a false confession. In addition the Interrogations should be time limited, especially for vulnerable suspects, such as teenagers. Another valuable reform would require police to provide, stronger evidence of their belief that a suspect is guilty, before proceeding with the interrogations. (Westervelt, and John, 2001)
Prosecutors should also carefully corroborate their stories and take into account of past experiences before using their claims that suspects confessed to them. Legal rules should be followed so as to allow the defendants extensive discovery to explore the nature of deals made in return for their testimony.
At present, many groups urge that compensation for indigent defense be raised to reasonable compensation, to allow competent assigned attorneys the time to represent clients better and bring public defenders’ workloads into compliance with established standards. Changes in appellate rulings should allow findings of ineffective assistance without needing to prove that incompetence caused a verdict. Defense attorneys should be expected to visit crime scenes and interview all prosecution and defense witnesses. (Findley, 2001, pg 333)
Additional funding should be given to prosecutors and their investigators, by reducing caseloads. This will create a better understanding of cases and may reduce wrongful convictions. Prosecutors should also advise the police and forensic laboratories to include exculpatory evidence in their reports. The prosecutors should also promote laws and regulations that will improve the lineups and interrogations by best practices established in psychological research. (Gould, 2007)Police investigators also need greater resources to ensure that the work pressures are more manageable. The investigators should be trained in wrongful conviction matters, hence ensure that they become aware of evidence which they are supposed to include in their reports.
Conclusion
For many years wrongful conviction has gone unnoticed in within the criminal justice. The investigations of wrongful convictions, which challenge the fairness and accuracy of the criminal justice system, have becoming a necessary feature of criminal justice analysis. This has led to increased cases of innocent person being incarcerated. This has prompted the need to create reforms to be enacted. The reforms will not only reduce this kind of injustice but will also improve the quality and professionalism of criminal justice officers. It therefore calls for a change in police culture on the way they conduct investigations.
References
Findley, Keith A. "Learning from our mistakes: A criminal justice commission to study wrongful convictions." Cal. WL Rev. 38 (2001): 333.
Gould, Jon B. The Innocence Commission: Preventing wrongful convictions and restoring the criminal justice system. NYU Press, 2007.
Gould, Jon B., and Richard A. Leo. "One hundred years later: Wrongful convictions after a century of research." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 100.3 (2010). 825-868
Leo, Richard A. Police interrogation and American justice. Harvard University Press, 2008.
Leo, Richard A., and Jon B. Gould. "Studying wrongful convictions: Learning from social science." Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 7 (2009): 2010-11.
Leverick, Fiona, and James Chalmers. "Causes of wrongful conviction." (2014): 30-43.
Westervelt, Saundra Davis, and John A. Humphrey. Wrongly convicted: Perspectives on failed justice. Rutgers University Press, 2001.
Zalman, Marvin, Brad Smith, and Angie Kiger. "Officials' estimates of the incidence of “actual innocence” convictions." Justice Quarterly 25.1 (2008): 72-100
Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best nursing writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for custom nursing papers.
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